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OTTAWA - NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair vowed to undo a $2.3-billion tax cut Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made available to some parents with children.

Mulcair has always opposed Harper's income-splitting scheme for parents but, until Thursday, had maintained that he would not raise taxes or reverse tax cuts if elected.

In an election rally-style speech on Parliament Hill, Mulcair declared income-splitting for parents, which will be in effect for the 2015 tax year, will be undone.

"Under Stephen Harper, inequality has actually grown between the privileged few and the middle class. We'll reverse that as well, and as a first step we'll scrap his unfair income-splitting scheme," Mulcair said to loud applause of the 150 or so NDP MPs and political staff that filled the same meeting room on Parliament Hill where the governing party normally holds its weekly caucus meetings.

Harper's plan allows spouses to essentially pool some of their income for tax purposes, an arrangement that could provide a non-refundable tax credit of up to $2,000 for the spouse with the higher income.

Mulcair said an NDP government would keep two other Conservative measures — the enriched Universal Child Care Benefit and enriched tax writeoffs for child car expenses.

Mulcair's declaration brought immediate scorn from the Liberals, who have said for weeks they would reverse income-splitting for parents.

"On the same day Mulcair says (the Liberal Party) has no policy, his big policy announcement is reversing income splitting, a (Liberal) policy from months ago," Justin Trudeau's policy director Mike McNair said on Twitter.

The Liberals believe the cost of the items Mulcair has already announced — things such as $15-a-day daycare and lowering the retirement age from 67 back down to 65 — will cost the federal treasury more than $52 billion over the next five years.

Mulcair, in his speech, noted that the Liberals have not told Canadians what they would do if they won office.

"Justin Trudeau still believes he can just inherit power without proposing a thing," Mulcair said.

Mulcair highlighted his own experience as a cabinet minister in Quebec — Trudeau has never served in the executive of any government.

"In my time around the cabinet table, I've been front and centre for the difficult decisions that are made day-in and day-out," Mulcair said. "Being prime minister is not an entry-level job."

That comment, too, drew a crack from Trudeau's inner circle.

"If Mulcair keeps repeating Harper's personal attacks on Trudeau verbatim, does (the Conservative Party) have to claim him as a campaign expense?" Trudeau advisor Gerald Butts posted on Twitter.

Mulcair also appointed a new chief of staff, Alain Gaul, who left his job as a lawyer with the Montreal office of Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP. Gaul replaces Raoul Gebert, who had ran Mulcair's leadership campaign and who will take up new duties with the NDP's election campaign in Quebec.

Mulcair said the NDP will have "the most ambitious, well-resources and successful NDP election campaign ever."